Sunday, November 30, 2008

It looks like our time here in the Thunderspire Labyrinth has come to a close. The uncontrolled Shadow Engine threatens my home town and family, and thousands of lives are at stake. We must seek answers in the Great Library, suspecting a connection to the lost arts of Tyrenil, and follow their thread until we attain the knowledge and power to stop the dread Engine.

It will be good to see the sun again. Still, there is something here that draws me: it is a place where Mages rule with logic and clarity, and where power may be claimed and increased. If our quest to stop the Engine should succeed, I might consider petitioning Orontur for membership as a Mage of Saruun. If our quest goes ill, it will be a moot point as Saruun will be no more.

Then again, what home can be secure for long in this world? Erawin and I were talking over supper, reflecting on the paths that brought us unexpectedly to this otherworldly cave. His homeland was destroyed by fire, his family killed, his life emptied of most of its color. Can vengeance substitute for security? Recently we saw the Seven-Pillared Hall threatened by the machinations of Torog-worshipping troglodytes. And now the whole of the Nentir Vale will be plunged into fell darkness soon if the Shadow Engine is not stopped.

With enough arcane power, I believe that security can be attained, and vengeance dealt for past losses. Soon enough, I ought to be able to aid Erawin to find the perpetrators he seeks: we are heading in the direction of more people, and more knowledge, and we will find and take the answers we need. For myself, I commit my life to gathering the will and knowledge to make fast a stronghold which will stand beyond worldly capriciousness. Powerful beings fold and shape the fabric of their planes, Elemental, Astral, Fey, or Shadow, to create domains and dominions that they rule with near impunity. I, too, shall become Lord of a Domain. Not today, not tomorrow, but it will happen.